


Monster

by KiwiLombax15



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Aboriginal characters, Gen, I wanted to explore what that means, Lore Building, Roadhog is described as an Ex-Enforcer, TW dark themes, junkertown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 14:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16788580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiwiLombax15/pseuds/KiwiLombax15
Summary: "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."But sometimes the abyss can be escaped.





	Monster

**Author's Note:**

> I have the headcanon that Junkertown is the raider hub of the outback, and Enforcers are charged with collecting "taxes" from the beleaguered settlements struggling to survive in the outback. Roadhog is described as an ex Enforcer and is known to be in the shit list with the queen.
> 
> Sometimes it's important to remember you're human.

The dust settled back down to the red earth as the enforcers bike pulled up near the crumbling fence. Inside, a shack sat in the sweltering heat, almost looking as if it was slumping down into the soil. Faded planks warped and groaned, flakes of peeling paint drifted down. A tiny garden struggled on in the sun and scrawny chickens hunted for whatever they could find.

Roadhog grunted in soft surprise. How the man in this hut owed the Queen money in “back taxes” was beyond him. 

Still. 

The chickens scattered in dumb animal terror as Roadhog made his way down the path, focused and grim, silent despite his weight. The whole house rattled as he knocked on the door. The voice inside was soft and tired, calling out in Pitjantjatjara.

“((Carter? Is that you about the eggs? Just a minute-))”

He waited until the shuffle of steps was closer before slamming the door open, knocking the man sprawling with a bleeding nose.

“Queen wants her money, Malya.”

The man stared up at him in horror.

“I-I don't have it! I swear! It was a bad year for the harvest and something happened to the traders! There's no money! Nothing!”

Roadhog frowned behind his mask. The same story. He'd heard it before. And so what if it was true? This was the outback the omnium had forged. What was honour worth? Survival mattered. Nothing more. Dog eat dog...

“Queen demands tribute. Or blood.”

Somewhere he heard children scream, but he was numb to it. He'd heard so many screams in his life...

“Please! I'm begging you! I can pay next month!”

Roadhog raised his gun, an old move, autopilot. Kill or be killed, the law of the jungle. In this blasted hellscape, forsaken by the people in big clean cities, might made right, and there was no one mightier than him...

A flash of dark skin and steel and an obstacle stood in his way.

She couldn't have been older than eight. Dusty clothes hung off stick thin limbs that by rights shouldn't have been able to hold up the shotgun she carried. Her hair was lank and tangled, poverty and desperate hunger in every line of her body. He was used to kids like her, the starving urchins that slunk on the margins in Junkertowns streets. But they were lean and hard, eyes flinty as they probed for the edges, the weak points.

This girl shook like a leaf, brown eyes huge and swimming with tears as she sighted down the barrel, the end of it wavering as she trembled.

“Leave....leave my dad alone...”

Roadhog huffed and stepped forward to frighten this shivering waif away.

And she held. Staring up at his looming mass, cowering at his feet even as she aimed the gun at his head, she held her position.

“I-I'll shoot! I will! Go away! Leave us alone!”

Sudden memories assailed him, of terrified people at protest lines, glaring at riot officers even as they tried not to flee. But those people had been older than this girl. This child who should have been at school in a kinder world, not staring up at an enforcer three times her height. She was crying now, tear tracks marking shimmering dark lines as they cut through the dirt on her face. Roadhog glanced up and saw two other little faces peering behind a table. Younger than the girl standing her ground.

Roadhog looked down at his scrap gun, his armour and spiked boots, then looked again at the tiny child standing in front of her prone father, a child whose back he could have snapped with one hand, and felt like a coward.

It would have been easy to shove her aside, to toss the gun at the wall and send her sprawling, to kill the man in front of the child who had tried her best to guard him. It would have been so easy. But this girl had stood in front of him, reeking of terror, and had held. The mask made him look like a monster, his sheer size making him something otherworldly. 

And she'd still held.

He'd known adults who'd shown less valour, who'd broken and run.

He lowered his gun, feeling sick with himself. It was as if some cobwebs had been shaken off a little corner of himself, the old voice in the back of his head screaming that he was _a monster! Look at you! Look at what we've become! Is this what we've fought for?_

And suddenly he felt fear. Fear of falling, fear of becoming what the suits had so long declared them. The girl had shamed him, ripped a veil off his eyes. In the fear in her eyes he'd seen what he'd wanted the outback to be, bravery and mateship and honour in the face of despair.

A whimper bubbled in his throat.

And he ran.

Ran for his bike, ran for his farm, ran for something familiar and safe in the face of sudden uncertainty.

For the first time in years, the one man apocalypse felt terror.

…

“What do you _mean_ you quit?”

The Queen leaned forward on her throne, anger suffusing her face.

“Means I quit.”

“You're my best enforcer! You can't just quit!”

“You can try and stop me.” Roadhog said quietly, and he could see the body language change in the ranks of her followers as they all tried to look as uninterested and harmless as they could.

“I can banish you for this, Mako!”

“Farm was always my property anyway. And it's not in the city walls. You can't stop me doing a damn thing, _your majesty._ ” Contempt dripped from every syllable as he turned on his heel and left. The Queen raged behind him but he tuned her out. She didn't matter now. 

The world was still cold and bleak. Nothing mattered. Not really. But he felt something kindle slightly in his chest. He didn't have to be what the Queen had made him. He wasn't someones pet attack dog. 

He wasn't a monster.

Never again.


End file.
